Long Beach may be saying goodbye to some of its billboards. But in their place, new digital advertisements may emerge.

City officials want fewer of the signs in the city, and they especially want them out of residential areas. But they’re competing against the wishes of billboard companies that want to bring in digital billboards, a type of advertisement that’s currently not allowed in here.

So they’re reaching a compromise: if billboard companies tear down a bunch of their old signs, they can get a few digital billboards in return. If the proposed program works as officials and advertising companies hope, in the end there will be fewer billboards overall and advertising companies will get a new lucrative way to make money.

The idea was originally presented to the City Council in December 2011 as a recommendation from city staff, but was not passed at the time. This latest measure reintroduces the concept and gives the city a tool to encourage advertising companies to take down unwanted billboards.

The number of billboards should be cut because they’re a type of blight, said Martha Thuente, the former chairwoman of the now-defunct North Long Beach Project Area Committee, a group that worked to stop new billboards from springing up. They look bad and, like the one near her home, billboards don’t always advertise anything that would benefit the neighborhood, she said.

“Three-fourths of the time I look out there and see advertisements for some form of liquor,” Thuente said.

Currently, the city requires a conditional use permit for new billboards and limits where they can go.

The council has asked the City Attorney’s Office and the Development Services Department to draft a “cap and trade” ordinance, which will have to return to the council for approval. It would allow billboard companies to set up new digital billboards outside of residential areas if they take down old ones first.

Exactly how many they must take down and what they get in return depends on a few factors:

• For every eight conventional signs companies take down, they can build one new digital billboard outside of a residential area. They must also receive a conditional use permit.

• Companies can convert a conventional billboard into a digital billboard if they take down four conventional billboards first.

The signs that billboard companies would have to remove were built perfectly legally and still comply with the city’s laws. But since they were constructed decades ago, neighborhoods have changed and the city has enacted billboard policies.

Billboard companies are willing to move their signs from residential neighborhoods and into high-traffic areas, but the city needs to make sure there’s a fair incentive to encourage them, said Richard Montgomery, real estate manager for Lamar Advertising Co.

There are an estimated 370 billboards in the city, including 147 that his company owns. Of his, 95 percent are in residential areas.

“If you let us move to a commercial district, don’t penalize us two-to-one. An eight-to-one ratio to take down signs and move them out, versus a four-to-one to keep them, doesn’t help any of us,” he said.

When it comes to billboards, Lamar is a big player. Councilman Gary Delong made an amendment to allow smaller companies that may not have an inventory large enough to qualify for a trade-in to be a part of the process too.

Under his provision, they can make an agreement with the city, possibly involving payments or profit sharing, if they can demonstrate that they can’t meet the requirements for a trade-in.

Exactly what that agreement will look like is uncertain, said Assistant City Attorney Michael Mais.

Long Beach’s regulations are similar to ones found elsewhere, said Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight, a group that has focused on reducing billboards in Los Angeles. It’s pretty common for cities to entice companies with new electronic billboards in exchange for taking down signs they don’t want.

“Digital billboards are the holy grail for the sign industry,” he said. “A lot of companies are willing to give up their conventional billboards in exchange for digital billboards. They’re much bigger money makers and they’re more cost-effective to run after the initial investment.”

He said that Long Beach’s trade-in ratio “sounds about right,” since digital billboards can bring in an estimated six to 10 times the money as conventional ones. Companies are particularly interested in putting signs along high-traffic areas like highways.

Thuente, however, said that digital billboards bring in a new type of blight: light pollution.

“The light glare, especially at night, is annoying,” she said.

Even if they are placed in a commercial or industrial area, they’re often close to homes, and the glare they emit can be particularly loathsome to people who live on a second floor. They can also be a danger for drivers, distracting them even if they aren’t directly looking at a digital sign, she said.

“When you drive by there at night you can, without looking at the billboard, tell when it’s changing,” Thuente said. “It’s very distracting to drivers.”

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